Why Maria Chale is fighting for the many deaf children struggling in mainstream classrooms with no specialized instructors
Maria Chale, 36, was a bubbly little girl who, encouraged by her older siblings and supported by her mother, developed an affinity to reading at a young age. She also loved singing, and always wanted to be a soldier.
That was until she was admitted in a hospital due to cerebral malaria. Although she eventually recovered from the malaria, the disease left her deaf. She was only 10 and a student at Mulunguzi West Primary School in Blantyre, Malawi's commercial hub.
Surviving in her new predicament was challenging and although her relatives became more supportive, some of her peers bullied her. In class, her ability to grasp what was being taught was greatly compromised.
"At first, I used to wear hearing aids at school to help with hearing. but I stopped using them as they produced too much static. Also, I got teased a lot by friends at school, so I just stopped wearing them," said Ms. Chale in an interview with Africa Renewal through written responses. ,
That meant she had to sit in front of the class so she can lip-read the teachers as they teach. For the most part, she depended on reading her class notes alone. With her earlier-acquired passion for reading, her performance was still impressive.
However, despite trudging through high school and being selected to the highly sought-after and competitive Chancellor College where she read social sciences and later completed a masters at the University of Edinburgh, Ms. Chale still faces challenges, including a seemingly discriminative attitude from some potential employers.
Malawi shifted from a special education system to an inclusive education system in the 1990s, where emphasis has been on enabling deaf children to learn alongside other children in inclusive mainstream classrooms.
According to a study 'Challenges faced by Deaf Children in Accessing Education in Malawi', published in the Deafness and Education International in 2021, (https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14643154.2021.1952374) many deaf children in the country are struggling in mainstream classrooms.
"However, the field remains confused, particularly since many deaf children are struggling in inclusive mainstream schools. Special schools for the deaf are boarding schools, which are too expensive for most deaf children who come from poor families," said the report.
The study found that due to isolation and loneliness in mainstream schools, some children are withdrawing from these schools and joining schools for the deaf. Furthermore, according to the study, most teachers at mainstream schools lack proper understanding of deaf children's educational needs.
Ms. Chale, whose master's degree is in Inclusive and Special Education and works as Disability Inclusion Consultant with Save the Children International in Malawi, narrated to Africa Renewal how the use of a manual note-taker for deaf students during her undergraduate smoothened her studies.
"I copied notes when sitting close to my classmates and this is the strategy that helped me quite a lot. The lecturers were also very helpful and shared with me notes or pamphlets in advance," she said.
Perhaps the biggest challenge Ms. Chale encountered during her schooling was the lack of sign language support. Although she had the advantage of being able to speak, it was still difficult to lip-read teachers throughout a whole lesson because they often walked up and about during class or spoke while facing the board.
Some improvements
Looking back from her time in school, Ms. Chale says there have been some slight improvements. For a start, there are now some qualified and specialist teachers in the field of deaf education, although not many. Also, there has been some government support towards those with visual disabilities.
However, it has emerged that some of the 'specialist' teachers are only taught basic day-to-day communication in Malawi sign language, which is not necessarily conducive for classroom discourse.
"There is nearly nothing done for the students' future transition to secondary school. There is still no support and no education materials available to them in schools," she said, adding: "the pass rate of learners with disabilities in primary and secondary schools continues to go downhill."
Mary commends organisations advancing inclusive education in the country but wants them to employ more people living with the disabilities with the necessary skills She herself has previously worked as a specialist teacher at a girl's high school before taking up her current post. While in college, she was also part of the martial arts team coming first in the female category competitions in 2007.
"The most memorable events while pursuing my education was the support rendered to me in secondary school and university. I had very supportive friends," she added.
Malawi, for the first time, recently held a national Spelling Bee competition for deaf children to promote and encourage inclusive education among special needs students.
A total of six schools for deaf children participated in the competition organized by the Malawi' Association for the Deaf with financial support from donors.
Malawi is among the first African countries to hold a spelling bee competition for deaf students.
At the Ministry of Education in Malawi, the department of Inclusive Education is committed to achieving inclusive education in the country.
The chief education officer, Peter Msendema, says the department's developing a sign language manual to train more teachers in the country.
Recently, colleges and universities introduced either curriculums or programmes in inclusive and special needs education.
Montfort Special Needs Education College, Catholic University of Malawi and Machinga Teachers Training College are some of the institutions that have fully -fledged programmes.
Jenipher Mbukwa Ngwira, the head of special needs education at the Catholic University of Malawi, the only university with an inclusive education programme targeting secondary school teachers, says interest in the programme has peaked.
She says the number of learners in the faculty include 80 students doing diploma, 40 students upgrading from regular teacher qualification and 200 bachelor students.
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But challenges still persist.
"We have an acute shortage of specialty teachers to support learners with disabilities. The number of teachers graduating from these institutions is not enough. The problem is when they graduate, they end up getting other jobs and not teaching," she said.
Ms. Ngwira also says some teachers have a knowledge gap on what constitutes inclusion. Inclusion goes beyond infrastructure and conducive environment she said, adding that teaching methods, available resources and friendliness of the learning environment are also important for a more conducive environment.
Again, Ms Ngwira notes, a lot of focus is given to physical disabilities while disregarding children with cognitive challenges such as intellectual disability, attention deficit, behaviour, dyslexia and others.
"We have so many learners with autism, health impairment problems and others. These , learners are left behind because teachers do not have the expertise on how to support them," she says,. Besides, some classrooms are not properly lit, toilets are inaccessible and other infrastructural challenges still persist.
Ms Ngwira commended various policies that the government of Malawi has in place including a draft on inclusive education but called for implementation.
"Policies exist but awareness by teachers and the public is not really there. We may have well-written policies but without implementation it beats the whole purpose. We should have more training for teachers and knowledge for regular teachers. Every teacher should be an inclusive teacher able to support any diverse problems," said Ms. Ngwira.
